Fighting under Fertig on Mindanao: One GI's Incredible Story from WWII

Fighting under Fertig on Mindanao: One GI's Incredible Story from WWII

Earl A. Cook is one of the guys that Tom Brokaw's book, "The Greatest Generation," did not include, but should have. Earl, a long time resident of Pittsfield, is one of the many Americans who were abandoned in the Philippines and did not surrender to the Japanese. His story is filled with details that for me, who never saw a live enemy soldier, are truly scary.

His duty in the Islands started a few months before the war as a USAF airman who was a gunner and mechanic on the crew of a B-17 at Clark Field on Luzon near Manila. His plane was one of four the Japanese failed to destroy on their attack on Dec. 8, 1941.

The surviving planes were sent to the island of Mindanao, about 250 miles south. The air crews were mostly able to get to Mindanao either on the aircraft or by boat. Earl went by boat and had a challenging cruise that entailed moving by night and hiding by day from the many Japanese aircraft and ships in that area. He did get to the new base only to be put into a perimeter defense line of the airbase as a foot soldier.

Shortly after arriving, his immediate superior, a captain, told these troops that the defense was strictly a delaying action. The ultimate end of the campaign would be death or imprisonment by the Japs. The captain said if they preferred to leave and take their chances in the hills, they were free to go.

Earl said it seemed to be a decision based on whether you were a city boy or a country boy. Earl, one of the latter, decided to go. Only one other airman went with him.

The next two years were an odyssey that covered many miles and many experiences and eventually ended, for Earl, when he was evacuated by submarine to Australia as a result of being seriously afflicted with malaria. This trip out of Mindanao was on the USS Narwall. After he left, Earl joined a wandering bunch of U.S. military personnel who did not surrender and had no place to go. One man, by the name of Wendell Fertig, saw a need for leadership among these men and a mission for them too. Fertig was a lieutenant colonel in the Army who had been a civil engineer and who had been hired by the Army just before the war broke out. He was not a line officer. He never studied the conduct of military operations. He was, like many, not happy about letting the Japanese capture him.

Further, he thought some organization and coordination could make this collection of men a force the Japanese would have to expend time, effort and troops to deal with. He was right. By the time the American Army reoccupied the Phillipines, the Japanese had lost 7,700 men in action against the remaining Americans and the Philippino forces who also did much to harass them. The losses among the local people were far in excess of this number. It was a bloody campaign.

Earl eventually found and joined this band of men led by Fertig. Earl tells of how he'd hear of a collection of Americans and go to investigate. On at least a couple of attempts he and the two men who were with him decided they did not want to ally themselves with a particular collection of men.

This process of finding Fertig on Mindanao which is an island about the size of Vermont and New Hampshire combined, was a long and arduous task that took about a year.

The three were constantly having trouble finding enough to eat. They were helped by an old American civilian, who had a place way up in the hills. Things were tough enough that one of the three eventually shot himself rather than continue the struggle.

Once Earl did find and join Fertig, he was part of this organized effort to defeat the Japanese under extreme conditions. Their small collection of arms and ammunition was replenished early on by ambushing Japanese truck convoys and taking any useful item. It took months to establish radio contact with U.S. Forces in the Pacific. It took even longer for MacArthur to recognize the leadership of Fertig as a legitimate U.S. Force behind the lines as then drawn.

After much time, supplies began to come in on submarines. Small arms, ammo, medical supplies (malaria was almost universal), radio gear, encoding devices, some food stuffs but not a lot. One of the tasks assigned to Earl was to offload boxes of supplies from the subs. NARWALL was in for three or four trips to Earl's recollection before he went out on it. There were probably some other subs, too.

One time Narwall was brought right up a river and docked to unload. Usually it unloaded offshore at night by many small boats. Earl did this kind of work and they ran the supplies up river from one to five miles and stacked them in small piles so as to cut losses if the Japanese found some of it, which they did.

One day Earl almost was killed. He was trying to reach a departure point for a small boat going to another island in daylight and he missed the boat by 15 minutes. The boat was never heard from again. He counts that as a lucky day for him.

One mission at the request of the Commander of SWPA (South West Pacific Area) was to keep lookouts high on the hills overlooking the ocean. If shipping was sighted (it was all Japanese shipping at that point), they radioed to a central point, Fertig's headquarters, with course, speed, location. This was rebroadcast to American subs from Australia or Pearl Harbor. The word back to Earl and his fellow spotters from the SWPA Command was that many sinkings happened as a result of these sightings. This was probably one of the most effective operations they ran in the time they served.

The surrender of Mindanao was about March of 1942, and the invasion of the Phillipines by the US Army was in May of 1945. That meant for more than three years, these men "fought alone." John Keats wrote a book in 1963 telling of this whole part of the war and its title is "We Fought Alone." A well written book and one that has much information about the many phases and details of the guerilla war. It lists all Americans who were part of this unit, including Cook and about another 150-200 men.

Earl answered the question of "What did you eat?" with a wry smile. Most of it was fish and rice, bought with money Fertig issued to them. Fertig ran a printing press for money he created on the promise the U.S. Government would honor it at the end of the war.

Earl's trip to Australia on the Narwall was not exactly a smooth ride. It was armed with torpedoes like any sub, and the skipper saw a Japanese ship and did sink it. Earl said everyone held still and did not talk on the sub as they maneuvered to evade the depth charges that predictably followed a sinking. The skipper turned north for the next few hours instead of proceeding south on his original course to lessen the chance for further attacks.

Reaching Australia, Earl entered a hospital and was treated for the malaria for a period of time and then was sent back to the US by plane. He needed more hospital time upon reaching the states, and finally landed an assignment in teaching mechanics until the end of the war.

By Robert Leister

Robert Leister, former principal at South Royalton, Bethel and Rochester, is collecting stories and memoirs from anyone who was involved in World War II. Reach him at Box 525, Bethel, VT 05032.

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